Bubbles and Bonanzas

Costeloe (professor emeritus and senior research fellow, Univ. of Bristol, UK) has a long resumé with respect to Latin American studies. His earlier books consist of research on church wealth and state relations in19th-century Mexico. This new publication focuses on joint stock companies as a risky investment in Mexico in the years immediately following independence (1821). Costeloe notes that his last major work (2003) focused on bonds and bondholders, making this new work a means of completing the British investment picture. The bottom line is that to British investors, Mexico's independence from Spain represented a golden opportunity, but the political quagmire that followed frustrated the possibilities, and by 1860 most investors had abandoned the country. The book consists of eight short but well-written chapters with meticulously researched examples to support Costeloe's subject. The book also includes a chapter titled 'Miscellany,' which enlightens readers on the 'paradoxes' of the British experience in Mexico, such as the utter failure of stock companies against the fabulous riches amassed by the local British managers. Scholars of Mexico's economic history will find this book of interest. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate through research collections. * CHOICE *
Bubbles and Bonanzas offers a vivid account of how Mexico was perceived by London society in the early nineteenth century and how images of the country were disseminated across Britain by exhibitions, the press, and subscription libraries. . . . In Bubbles and Bonanzas, Professor Costeloe has exposed rich seams of evidence that will be productively and profitably mined by future historians. Bankers and regulators would also profit from reading this narrative, which provides stories of unrealistic expectations, puff and manipulation, venality and the correction of corporate cash crises and credit crunches, and popular anger at a time when no government bailouts were on offer. * Hispanic American Historical Review *
In this book, the late Michael Costeloe has given us an excellent account of British investment, and investors, in early independent Mexico. Based on voluminous research in various depositories in Britain, the United States, Mexico and even Australia, and on sources such as company reports, personal letters, newspapers and the usual government records, as well as the available secondary literature, he has put together a remarkable complete picture of opaque endeavors in a turbulent period of mexico's history. * Journal of Latin American Studies *
[T]his book demonstrates the impressive depth of the author’s empirical research. ... The book is by no means a dull business history. ... The book provides very detailed portraits, reconstructed from extensive research in British and Mexican archives. * Bulletin of Latin American Research *
This is a compelling and welcome study of British investment in Mexico in the decades following the country’s independence from Spain. Costeloe provides a detailed analysis of the different types of companies that were formed, what happened to them, and engaging profiles and biographies of a number of representative shareholders. The result is a thorough and comprehensive study that offers a particularly vivid interpretation of the British experience in Independent Mexico. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a major contribution to the historiography. -- William Fowler, University of St. Andrews
What emboldened Britons, in the 1820s, to part with their hard earned savings and invest them in the legendary silver mines of Mexico, without knowledge of mining or Mexico? Here is a tale of confidence in the unknown, belief in capitalism and the hope of riches, widespread misconceptions and just plain ignorance. All the pitfalls of British pride, hucksterism, false modernizations, political unrest and credit crises make Bubbles and Bonanzas an illuminating moral, as well as an, until now, little known part of English and Mexican history which had a profound economic influence on the lives of small investors and optimistic entrepreneurs. Bankruptcy, threatened invasion, and an occasional fortune were only some of the outcomes. -- Anne Folger Staples-Dean, El Colegio de Mexico